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Mastodon, like many other db backed web apps (notoriously WordPress), is a very brittle application when you throw a lot of unexpected load at it and when it's
by riffic 3y ago
Mastodon, like many other db backed web apps (notoriously WordPress), is a very brittle application when you throw a lot of unexpected load at it and when it's run on a single server.
- solardev 3y agoI've never used Mastodon before, but this was a terrible first introduction. Does that mean that different Mastodon instances will just go up and down depending on how their server is doing that particular moment? There's no caching or CDN? Modern Wordpress hosts do both, and it's usually very very quick to load.
- ReactiveJelly 3y agoWell, yes. I suppose one could enable caching in Nginx or some other reverse proxy but Mastodon itself is just the app, there'd be no point for it to implement caching or a CDN when the admin can hook that on in front.
- solardev 3y agoWell, there's invalidations etc., to consider. Wordpress uses its plugin system to interact with the various caches: https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/optimization-caching/ https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/optimization-cac... But basically, it's an essential part of a modern Wordpress stack (lol, what an oxymoron, I know), not an afterthought. It's not something a lone-wolf admin using a generic Varnish/Nginx config should do, but part of a large a community-driven effort to improve Wordpress performance. These plugins are very well integrated into the Wordpress base system and cache many parts of it. This isn't so much to defend Wordpress (whose ancient architecture requires the use of these techniques), but to express surprise that a modern software like Mastodon doesn't have this built-in.
- slimsag 3y agoMastodon generally encourages users to host their own instance of it. https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/run-your-own/ https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/run-your-own/ Many people run theirs on a small VPS, raspberry pi, etc. and there are a number of 'paid hosting' providers for Mastodon servers too. In practice, this all means yes: unlike a blog, it is a complex web application, and caching and whether a CDN is in use are up to the person hosting it. Mastodon can also be fairly expensive to run, depending on how many images/videos people upload, traffic they bring to the instance, etc.
- solardev 3y agoOh wow, I didn't realize that was part of its philosophy. I thought it was more a Usenet-style system, where small/medium companies (like ISPs) would host instances. But individual users doing it? That sounds like a surefire recipe for bottlenecks and unreliability...
- riidom 3y agoThis is a single-user instance from the author. No idea where it is hosted on. In hindsight, I should have used an indirect link via mastodon.social or something, apologies.
- solardev 3y agoSorry, this definitely wasn't meant as a complaint against your post! I was just surprised at the Mastodon architecture, having never seen a post in the wild before. I didn't know they were usually self-hosted.
- riidom 3y agoNo problem, thanks for replying!:) Wouldn't say it's an usual thing to do so (has some obvious downsides), maybe for people who love self-hosting.
- ipaddr 3y agoThey are usually hosted on bigger instances. This guy is self hosting. Same effect if you self host a blog and it's gets posted here.